Fantasy Cross Country Week 4: Awakening A Sleeping Szabo

In Week 4, there were a number of strong performances from a number of athletes who hadn't been their respective fantasy team's #1 up to this point. Others were either resting or running workouts at low-key meets. Week 4 thus presented a couple of new teams in the Top 2 and a couple of new teams in the bottom half of the weekly standings. A rough week by Team Wang's standards had him finish 5th, just behind Team Hackett. Hackett didn't have the typical low score from Mugeche that he had been used to and Team Wang is typically not led by Nicholas Ondr. Without Ondr's sub-16, though, it may have been an even rougher week for him. Team Szabo had only been in the Top 4 teams once this season, when he was 4th in Week 1, but in Week 4, he had a phenomenal week led by his two West Plains studs Ethan Hutchinson and Ben Stasney scoring 2 and 3 points for him respectively. He was then helped along by a 15:59 3 mile by Dean Frossard (converted to 16:35) and Jared Neikirk giving him a 16:38. A better day from Jimmy Dietrich or Jackson Letcher could've seen Szabo closer to the high 40s, low 50s on the week but he still would've came out victorious regardless. Following Team Szabo was Rubin/Hoffman who snuck into 2nd even without Stephen Kielhofner racing last week. In this week, we caught a glimpse of the potential that Rubin/Hoffman has to make a big jump once Kielhofner starts putting down his crazy times with more regularity. They also took 2nd with only 4 runners getting a time on the day.

I was just behind Rubin/Hoffman on the week. I still haven't gotten everyone together on the same day... Procell is biding his time and the Blue Springs boys didn't run up to their potential again. Also I was missing Ryan Flood and neglected to start Easton Sabala who broke 17 twice in Week 4. Riddle gave me the 1-2 spot he should be grabbing every week, and Buffington crushed it for me at Stampede, too, but I just still haven't gotten that big week from everyone at the same time yet.. Maybe Week 5 will be different!